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makekey(8) [v7 man page]

MAKEKEY(8)						      System Manager's Manual							MAKEKEY(8)

NAME
makekey - generate encryption key SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/makekey DESCRIPTION
Makekey improves the usefulness of encryption schemes depending on a key by increasing the amount of time required to search the key space. It reads 10 bytes from its standard input, and writes 13 bytes on its standard output. The output depends on the input in a way intended to be difficult to compute (i.e. to require a substantial fraction of a second). The first eight input bytes (the input key) can be arbitrary ASCII characters. The last two (the salt) are best chosen from the set of digits, upper- and lower-case letters, and `.' and `/'. The salt characters are repeated as the first two characters of the output. The remaining 11 output characters are chosen from the same set as the salt and constitute the output key. The transformation performed is essentially the following: the salt is used to select one of 4096 cryptographic machines all based on the National Bureau of Standards DES algorithm, but modified in 4096 different ways. Using the input key as key, a constant string is fed into the machine and recirculated a number of times. The 64 bits that come out are distributed into the 66 useful key bits in the result. Makekey is intended for programs that perform encryption (e.g. ed and crypt(1)). Usually its input and output will be pipes. SEE ALSO
crypt(1), ed(1) MAKEKEY(8)

Check Out this Related Man Page

crypt(3C)																 crypt(3C)

NAME
crypt - generate hashing encryption SYNOPSIS
Obsolescent Interfaces DESCRIPTION
crypt(): is the password encryption function. It is based on a one way hashing encryption algorithm with variations intended (among other things) to frustrate use of hardware implementations of a key search. key is a user's typed password. salt is a two-character string chosen from the set this string is used to perturb the hashing algorithm in one of 4096 different ways, after which the password is used as the key to encrypt repeatedly a constant string. The returned value points to the encrypted password. The first two characters are the salt itself. Obsolescent Interfaces generate hashing encryption. WARNINGS
The return value for points to data whose content is overwritten by each call. and are obsolescent interfaces supported only for compatibility with existing DCE applications. New multithreaded applications should use SEE ALSO
crypt(1), login(1), passwd(1), getpass(3C), passwd(4), thread_safety(5). STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
crypt(3C)
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